'No mercy' from Mugabe for Britain asylum seekers

All fugitives from the law who found refuge in the United Kingdom will face the full wrath of the law once they return to Zimbabwe as their crimes will not die out, President Mugabe has said.

The President, who was addressing thousands of Zanu-PF supporters who gathered at Hama High School in Chirumhanzu yesterday, castigated those who tried to tarnish his name alleging political persecution when they were mere criminals fleeing the law, saying they should come back to atone for their ruinous actions.

[ ... ]

Some Zimbabwean businesspeople, particularly those in the financial services sector, fled Zimbabwe to the United Kingdom in the wake of the clean-up launched by the Reserve Bank to stamp out unethical practices in the financial services sector that saw millions of Zimbabweans being fleeced of their funds that were diverted to speculative activities by the bankers and asset management companies.

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'Will Kosovo open Pandora's box?'

Several moments concerning Kosovo's independence deserve to be reviewed at this point.

Is there a chance that Russia will clash with the West over Kosovo as some suggest?

That is very unlikely. And that was surely the major assumption in the United States' decision to recognize the province—that Russia would not engage beyond political means.

But Russia will definitely (try to) fortify its presence in the region, as long as Serbia, humiliated as it is, turns its back to the West. Russia and Serbia just signed a pipeline deal of potential long-term importance for regional (and wider) energy security—an area the European Union is very sensitive to. Russia has a very strong economic presence in Montenegro.

Recently Russian military experts rejected as tactical nonsense the rumor of Russia possibly deploying missiles in Serbia. If Russia did decide to make a move in that direction, tension would definitely explode.

The cards on the table are the de facto partition of Kosovo, and what happens with the Republic of Srpska, the Serbian entity in the Bosnian Federation. The tables could well turn in that the West may have to engage in preventing a secession of the Republic of Srpska in the near future. Secession does not seem viable at this particular moment, but time is a critical dimension. If political tension subsists over a 6 to 12 months period, what seems unlikely today might seem perfectly possible then. Macedonia, with a sizeable Albanian community, cohesive for the time being, might also come under increasing pressure by radical structures.



~ From Kosovo and the Balkans: Afterthoughts on Independence ~

Cyprus to hold reunification talks

From Al-Jazeera :

Rival leaders of divided Cyprus have agreed to begin fully-fledged talks on the future of the island in three months, according to a joint statement released after a meeting in Nicosia.
The meeting, held in a neutral UN territory on Friday, was intended to break the deadlock that threatened to derail Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

It was the first meeting with Mehmet Ali Talat, the Turkish Cypriot leader, since Demetris Christofias, the Greek Cypriot leader, assumed the presidency last month.

"This is a new era. We're starting for the solution of the Cyprus problem," Talat said afterwards.

Christofias said: "We shall try our utmost in order to come to an agreed solution for the interest of the Cypriot people, both communities, as soon as possible."...

Violent strikes hit Greece

From Aftenposten :

Riot police fired tear gas at demonstrators throwing rocks and firebombs in central Athens during a nationwide general strike Wednesday by millions of Greeks protesting government pension reforms. The walkout, like two other general strikes since December, shut down public services and forced the cancellation of dozens of flights. Tens of thousands of people marched in Athens, and about 8,000 demonstrated in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where protesters set fire to two banks and three automatic teller machines.

Experts Urge All-Out Toilet Efforts

New technology, religion, and the market must be harnessed to secure basic toilet facilities for Asia's rural and urban poor, sanitation experts from the region said here Thursday.

Currently, over 2.6 billion people across the world have no access to an organized system of toilets, of which some 1.5 billion people live in the Asia-Pacific region, states the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), a regional UN body based in Bangkok, which hosted a conference on sanitation.

And every year, over 200 million tons of human waste go uncollected and untreated globally, adds ESCAP. This not only fouls the environment and spreads diseases, but forces the people with no access to toilets to ''live in deeper poverty and indignity.''

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